Research For Practice

CISAT currently operates five research laboratories each of which allows Master's and PhD students to become involved in real-world projects, utilizing design and action research methods to advance their understanding of specific areas in IS&T.

The Advanced GIS Lab in CISAT focuses on advanced spatial analysis and the research and development of advanced GIS solutions. The Lab stresses a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge, research, and problem-solving that takes the core ideas, methods, and concepts from several disciplines and uses them to study a broad range of problems. This transdisciplinary approach, a hallmark of CGU’s research philosophy, extends the scope of interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary scholarship by traversing the range of traditional disciplines for the advancement of knowledge and solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. Currently, the Lab is working on issues that involve using GIS technologies to improve community health management, better manage transportation systems, and target humanitarian relief efforts. The lab is an officially designated Esri Development Center (EDC).visit Advanced GIS Lab

The goal of ISL is to develop and evaluate information systems that are user-friendly, dynamic, and learn from and for the user. Our intellectual goal is to find out what these systems require and why. We envision a world where computer and information systems partner with their human users. The two parties will communicate, anticipate each other's needs and wishes, and act accordingly. To this end, we work on different algorithms that deal with language, knowledge, computation, and visualization. Our research efforts, funded by NSF, NIH and Microsoft, are interdisciplinary as we frequently collaborate with different sciences and interest groups in order to maximize positive outcomes. visit ISL

The Kay Center for E-Health Research was established in 2006 with a $1 million grant from the Kay Foundation. The Kay Center has quickly become one of our most active and publicized research labs. Kay Center research projects are designed to advance scientific understanding and public policy improvements relative to how new electronic health systems can be used to promote industry efficiency and societal welfare. The Kay Center will provide you with an excellent opportunity to conduct research in several areas related to e-health as well as establish valuable industry contacts through collaboration with outside organizations. visit The Kay Center

The IDEA Lab (formerly known as the Network Convergence Lab) is a unique facility used to design, research, and develop IT artifacts that can solve human and social problems. Faculty and students in the lab follow a simple paradigm called Design Science for which the lab is well-known for in the CGU community.IDEA Labs currently has many projects underway in areas and domains such as sensor networks, chronic disease management systems, social media, healthcare and energy informatics. We are working on a host of problems that range from diabetes, persuasion, sensor networks, tele-medicine, PTSD to understanding brain activity with neuroscience.visit IDEA

The mission of [SL]2 is to learn more about how social software can promote learning and collaborative research in a virtual environment. Our researchers design, build, and test tools that let groups of learners express their individual views and questions, respond to the ideas of others, collaborate on shared learning goals, and otherwise interact in ways that promote learning. In [SL]2 we learn about social software by creating it and studying how learners use it. visit [SL]2